


a new beginning

by Jakbxn



Category: Gravity Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25583593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakbxn/pseuds/Jakbxn
Kudos: 2





	a new beginning

Dipper woke to the sound of his alarm, a cacophonous sound that mildly resembled a twisted combination of a drowning cat and Stan's singing. He shot to his feet, already fully awake - he hadn't really been asleep anyways - the mildewed smell of his tiny dorm room assaulting his nose. Normally, Dipper would relish at the chance to take a break from his incredibly hectic life. He usually spent a good amount of time loitering in what he somewhat ironically referred to as the "clean corner," a small gap between the right side of the bed and the wall that wasn’t covered in the miscellaneous life forms that seemed to occupy the rest of the square box he had called his home for the past two years. 

Today was different. The normally oppressive atmosphere of the cramped room which served to drain his energy seemed to have been magically lifted. The ever present buzz of his computer which conjured up memories of long nights and difficult assignments was gone. The room itself seemed larger, the few belongings he had that were usually strewn around the room picked up and packed semi-neatly into his bright pink suitcase (it had been the cheapest option) or unceremoniously swept into the tiny metal trash can. A feeling of euphoria guided Dipper as he moved towards the awkwardly positioned dresser that doubled as a work desk, grabbing his phone and turning off the grating alarm selected by Mabel to be a "substitute for Mabel juice."

Two years ahead of schedule. Really, two years three months and five days ahead of schedule, if you were counting. Dipper definitely had been, each extra class taken, each extra hour studied, each day he brushed off his friends being meticulously counted as fewer days in college. He'd finished and graduated unceremoniously on his own, a month before most others graduated and years ahead of his class. 

His desire to graduate early was by no means because the college was bad; as a matter of fact, it was probably the best in the country for the advanced physics, biology and engineering courses he had been taking. Not only that, the courses he had taken were all recommended by Ford as things that would be incredibly useful for when he went out into the field, discovering new and weird phenomena. It wasn't that the classes were boring, per se, Dipper's professors had been very knowledgeable and his peers had been nice and equally excited as he was by their respective fields. In fact, he had been able to make a couple of new friends with whom he spent time discussing whatever topic they had learned in class. 

No, what really had turned the college into a trap that he felt he couldn't escape from was the sheer boredom of it. "But you're in the nation's most prestigious college!" he would be told when the complaints he made to Mabel and the Grunkles eventually made their way to the ears of his parents. Of course, Dipper understood their incredulity - after all, what person would be unhappy with earning a degree at a school that would provide the best education possible? One that had been making regular trips to Gravity Falls and spending each second there in some exciting adventure or another, that's who. Only a little over a year had passed before he had started to feel stifled by the formal nature of the University, with its rigid schedules, preset research topics and slow pace. He missed being able to simply go exploring with Mabel, the walks in and around Piedmont he had once labeled boring now seeming like the most exciting activity. Of course they had their daily calls, but Mabel's infectious energy was heavily diluted over the internet and their conflicting schedules meant the calls were often only at most half an hour long. It was this boredom that spurred him to finish his degrees as early as humanly possible, against the protests of those close to him.

It was definitely worth it, he thought as he pulled on a pair of unwashed shorts covered in a peeling and tacky Hawaiian print. Dipper knew that he would soon be free to go with Ford on as many expeditions as he liked, without anything to hold him back. No matter that the past couple of years had been hell, the prospect of being able to join Ford more than made up for it. Plus, it was over. No need to reminisce on the past. He had things to look forward to, like Ford taking time out of his busy schedule to call him with a hearty congratulations and a promise to pick him up. He had told Dipper that he would be there at exactly 8:17, and Dipper knew that the oddly specific time meant Ford had something exciting planned for the day. 

He checked his watch - 7:55. He still had twenty or so minutes but it was better to be early than late, wasn't it? Plus, it wouldn't hurt to leave the tiny dorm and get some fresh air. Feeling pretty satisfied with his own logic, he haphazardly tossed one of the few shirts he had left piled around the room. The rest of his clothes he was able to grab and put into his suitcase quite easily; the fact that he had kept his clothes in piles meant that the unwashed mixed somewhat unpleasantly with the washed, but it was incredibly easy to pack. Who washed their clothes on a regular basis anyways, strapped for both time and money as college students were? 

Picking up his suitcase with one hand, Dipper opened the cheap plastic clasp that was impossible to open when the suitcase lay on the floor. Heaving the weight up into the air, he stuffed the ball of clothes in as neatly as he could, then immediately regretted not setting the suitcase down first as it slipped out of his hands and fell onto the floor with an incredibly loud crash and spilled the clothes he had carefully spent all of five minutes packing onto the floor.

Dipper sighed deeply. There he had been, pulling off something cool and dextrous, something that Great-Uncle Ford probably did in his sleep. Alas, despite being much stronger than he had been when he was younger, he was still awkward and plenty clumsy. Bending over to repack his clothes and other belongings, he snuck a glance at his watch again. 8:08. Okay, maybe he wouldn't be able to enjoy the great outdoors for so long, or more importantly check if Ford had come early, but he still did have 10 minutes. Moving a little faster, he picked up wads of clothing and repacked them in the suitcase, stuffing his laptop somewhere in the folds of his clothes to protect it. McGucket had given it some significant upgrades, but it was by no means indestructible.

He stood up and carefully lifted the suitcase, this time ensuring he had a solid grip on it before snagging his jacket from the forlorn plastic chair sitting by itself in the middle of the room, one leg wobbling off the ground like always. Setting down the suitcase next to the door and slipping into his jacket, Dipper scanned the room. 

I'm definitely forgetting something, he thought to himself. It would be quite inconvenient if he forgot something - he’d rather not have to return to the college in the middle of an adventure - and now that he was preparing to leave the room, his confidence that he had remembered everything faded. His eyes roamed over discarded scrap papers, fast food wrappers, cans of Pitt Cola, and the non-functional beat up fridge before settling on a misshapen lump on the top of said fridge. Instantly knowing what it was, he walked over to the fridge and gently lifted the battered blue journal out of its cloth covering and placed it within his ever-handy jacket pocket, mentally bashing himself for forgetting such an important item. He hadn’t really touched it since arriving at the college, but it still contained all the encounters he’d had with the paranormal over the years and whatever information Ford had deemed safe to be transcribed over from the original three journals. Trying to keep up the excited mood he was in, he reasoned that his forgetfulness was probably caused by too much studying. Dipper considered the frantic last couple of weeks. Definitely too much studying - it totally made sense that he'd be forgetting things. However, finding that he had forgotten his journal shook any remaining confidence he'd had that everything vital was packed. Unfortunate as it may be, it looked like his extra ten minutes would have to be spent ensuring that he hadn’t left something is one of the crevices of the room.

Having found no other secret journals or similarly important items, he returned to his suitcase, picking it up and shoving open the rusted metal door, it's lurid green swinging aside to reveal the glorious expanse of asphalt that awaited him. A brisk spring air hit him in the face, a welcome change from the stale yet moist air he had become accustomed to. He peered out over the sea of grey, hoping to spot Ford's ancient truck parked among the two dingy cars who had been there so long that they were practically part of the parking lot. Instead, he spotted something his sleep-deprived brain could barely process. Nestled between two faded white lines was what looked like a brand new car of some brand he couldn't recognize. He was sure the Grunkles would have told him that they had gotten a new car, and even if they had forgotten, as they were now prone to do, Mabel surely would have told him. He checked his watch - it was now 8:18, and Ford wasn’t known to be late. Even if Ford had run into something unexpected, he knew he would have gotten a call. However, it was incredibly unlike Ford to spend money on anything expensive that wasn’t equipment. If Ford had bought a luxury car, Dipper had probably been secretly transferred to an alternate dimension while in the college. He couldn’t think of any plausible explanation as to why that car was there, until one of the car doors opened and a small-statured blonde stepped out from the driver's seat.

He froze, his fleeting thoughts of action and adventure dissipating as he instantly regretted wearing week old clothes. He hadn't seen Pacifica in months and the last time they had met in person, they had had what could be called their first real fight. It really was miraculous that she put up with his antics for so long, and Dipper understood how extraordinarily lucky he was to have been in a steady relationship with her for such a long time. Of course, Dipper had apologized profusely over text the very day after they had fought over how much he was dedicating to work, but it was impossible to tell whether or not she really forgave him based solely on her curt reply. Mabel had told him that he worried too much and "really was clueless when it came to girls, huh" and the two had kept up their normal correspondence, albeit at a lower rate than usual, given how busy he was with classes and exams, but he had been dreading seeing her again just as much as he had been looking forward to it. While he had been frozen in place like an idiot - like a deer in headlights, his brain unhelpfully supplying the age-old cliché - Pacifica had made her way across the parking lot and was in the process of walking up the stairs.

Dipper smiled shakily as she approached. "Hey," he stammered, his voice betraying him once again and cracking midway through. "I...uh...didn't expect to see you here."

Her blue eyes flashed as her cheeks flushed a furious red. "I come all the way out here to your dirty hovel just to visit you, and all I get is a 'hey'?! If you 'didn't expect to see me here' why don't I just leave, huh?"

Whoops. Definitely said the wrong thing. Mabel was definitely wrong - Pacifica was still mad at him. Dipper wondered again why he had decided to put on the worst clothes he had available to him. Trying to salvage the situation, he decided that apologizing again was probably the best course of action. "Pacifica, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get angry at you when you told me to work less." He snuck a peek at her face to gauge her reaction, but he wasn't expecting much in the way of anything positive. Their argument had been incredibly intense and he had gone a little crazy, a combination of immense stress and the constant pestering of his friends to loosen up and work less.

To his relief and slight surprise, Pacifica started laughing, a high twinkling sound Dipper knew he would never get tired of. "You're still on that?" she asked, incredulous. "You really are a dork, you know. You just...I…" she trailed off, fiddling with the bright green gem in her earring. "Look, I missed you a lot. I shouldn't have yelled at you and I'm definitely not mad about that anymore. I only got mad because I've been wanting to see you for months, and the first thing you greet me with is saying that you didn’t expect me." She smiled coyly, brushing a stray lock of gold behind her ears. "I guess it’s nice that you still can’t think of anything to say when you see me."

Dipper breathed a small sigh of relief, silently congratulating himself on his impeccable conversational prowess. "Hah, I missed you too. And you're totally okay to yell at me." Still slightly nervous, he continued to ramble. "Sorry I'm wearing such dirty clothes, I -"

Pacifica cut him off. "You really can't take a hint, can you?" Rolling her eyes melodramatically, she pulled him close, firmly planting her lips to his. Dipper melted a little on the inside, the stress that had been building up for the past couple of months disappearing at her touch. He breathed out a small sigh of disappointment when she pulled away, his heart pounding and already missing the feeling of her heartbeat against his.

She smirked. "If I'd known I'd get this sort of reaction from you just by showing up and giving you a kiss, I wouldn't have prepared anything at all."

"Prepared anything? I may be a little awkward -"

"A lot awkward."

"A lot awkward," Dipper condeded begrudgingly. "Be that as it may, I was legitimately curious when I asked you what you were doing here, not just trying to make a fool of myself. Ford had told me he was going to pick me up. Is he with you?"

"No?" she said, half question, half answer. "I hadn't heard anything from Ford saying he would be here. I asked Mabel if she wanted to come but the play her class is doing is starting tomorrow so she needed to prepare. I'm sure she would have mentioned if Ford had told her something."

Confusion set in, then a little bit of worry. Dipper knew Ford and his habits: it had been Ford's goal to communicate clearly with the rest of the Pines whenever he did anything, trying to reverse - and in a roundabout way make up for - the old habit of completely isolating himself whenever he did anything deemed important. Ford had always been incredibly punctual, and following with his goal of clear communication, he made sure to let people know when he was going to be late. Really, Ford's lack of messages to the twins and tardiness was nearly as strange as if it had been Ford in the luxury car.

"That really is strange," Dipper said, disappointed.

Knowing him all too well, Pacifica rolled her eyes again, this time managing to convey even more exasperation in a single movement. "You can go on your nerd adventures soon. By the time we get to Gravity Falls he'll probably be there and the two of you can go off and do whatever dorky things you need to do." 

As always, Pacifica is right. He knew deep down that he wouldn't have been ready to go on an adventure immediately anyways. It had just been wishful thinking created by the excitement of his quasi-graduation. Walking away from the dorm hand in hand with Pacifica, he felt happier than he had in a long time. What he had been craving had been time with his family and his girlfriend, and knowing he would soon have both brought him greater excitement than any adventure would.

As he got closer to the car, the sheer glamour of the car struck him. "Paz?" he asked, using the endearing nickname coined by Mabel and hated by Pacifica. "When'd you get a new car?"

"Parents," she said curtly, pointedly ignoring his use of her nickname. "Preston was at a company board meeting and so I took it. It was just there for show anyways."

The subject of her parents had always been a touchy subject, and for good reason. Her parents' use of conditioning was terrifying even when compared to the near apocalypse they had gone through together and had left a deep lasting trauma that Pacifica had been trying to recover from for the past years. It didn't help matters that her new rebellious streak appeared in tandem with Weirdmageddon. The combination of these two things slowly but steadily drew a wedge between the relationship between each of the Northwests. The fact that they had lost their family home had not helped matters. Without a mansion in which to stay, the Northwests moved, uprooting Pacifica from where she had always lived. As the Northwest familial conflict raged, Pacifica grew ever closer with the Pines twins, who were ultimately her only real friends after a life trapped under the yoke of responsibilities forced onto her by her parents. Her frequent visits to Piedmont outside of the summer months didn't help matters, only further enraging Preston. Over time, the Pines became a surrogate family for her, and when the divorce happened, Pacifica started spending most of her time outside of boarding school at the Pines. Dipper wasn't really sure how much of the elder Northwest's money continued to be available to Pacifica after she'd turned eighteen, but the amount of money she spent had lowered a great deal since he had first met her, and it seemed whatever money she had left was more than enough.

Perhaps unwisely, he decided to press a little more. "Won't he miss it?"

She let out a small, bitter laugh. "You really think he pays any attention to anything outside the business nowadays? He hasn't been home in months."

"Sorry," Dipper said softly as he slipped into the overly plush car seat. He reached over the armrest and pulled her hand into his, squeezing it lightly. "You know we're here for you."

She smiled, a little bittersweet smile that didn't fully reach her eyes. "I know. Thanks."

As the car quietly pulled out of the parking lot, it's engine purring softly almost as if in anticipation of leaving behind the broken lot, Dipper felt his spirits rise in spite of the heavy emotions that he had idiotically triggered. The sound of the car struck home the fact that he was returning to his true home in Gravity Falls. A giddy grin split his face as he turned to Pacifica. "It's going to be okay," he said to himself as much as it was to her. "Soon, we'll be with Soos, and the Grunkles, and Mabel, and Wendy, and everyone."

She returned his smile. "And we'll be playing the latest expansion of Bloodcraft: Overdeath - I was gonna tell you I bought it for us before you cut me off."

Dipper let out a small squeal of excitement, the likes of which he would have been mortified to make in his teenage years. "I'm sorry. You're the best."

"Hah. I know." Their conversation turned to other things as the car pulled onto the highway, the two catching up with each other after months apart, their words never slowing, as if a lull in the conversation would conjure up the weight of adulthood.


End file.
